Laurencekirk as a linear settlement, Aberdeenshire

Image: © Adrian Diack Taken: 17 Jul 2025

The photo was taken outside Kirkburn Court, which now occupies the site of the Boar’s Head Inn, where Robert Burns and his travelling companion Willi Nicol broke their journey on the 11th of September 1787 before journeying onwards to Hillside and Montrose in a horse-drawn two-wheeled chaise. The view in the photo looks southwest along the line of High Street to the tall spire and then beyond it. Laurencekirk, in the Howe o’ the Mearns, is a market town, and though the livestock market has now closed, it remains as a central service hub for the local area. The town was, in the past, known for making snuffboxes with a special type of airtight hinge (known as a "Laurencekirk hinge") invented by James Sandy. Laurencekirk's origins trace back to the High Street, which was developed by Lord Gardenstone when he sold off feus (land for building) in a linear fashion. This initial development created a linear settlement pattern with houses and other buildings arranged at the side of the road, and though there have been new buildings, this core linear structure has remained as a defining characteristic of Laurencekirk’s layout. The coming of the railway on the 1st of November, 1849, further reinforced the linear pattern of the town.

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